a recently released survey from the

anti-defamation league found incidents

of anti-semitism are on the rise on

college campuses around the nation

joanna gagis has our story as part of

exploring hate our ongoing series of

reports on anti-semitism racism and

extremism

i'm wearing a baseball cap because when

i'm on campus i don't feel safe wearing

my kippah aaron barthold says he's

experienced anti-semitism in many forms

during his time at rutgers university in

newark so much so that he hides his

traditional head covering and he's not

alone we've seen attacks on students

because of their support for israel

we've seen

that they've been

excluded from spaces because of their

support for israel a new survey released

by the anti-defamation league or adl

found that nearly a third of all jewish

students nationwide experienced

anti-semitism directly and the number

grows to 43 when you add those who've

witnessed it more than 40 percent

of jewish students had either personally

experienced anti-semitism in the

2020-2021 school year

or had witnessed somebody being the

victim of anti-semitism most often it's

in the form of comments or slurs online

or in person according to the report and

it's often repeated behavior but at

rutgers newark sometimes it's physical

as barthold knows all too well i had

another student prostrate prostratized

towards me and tried to remove my kippah

and thankfully i had other students

there that i was friends with that kept

the person

away but there are other students on

campus that are afraid to even wear

their stars of david's out their

necklaces out white supremacists and

nationalist groups have been emboldened

in recent years but there's a growing

anti-semitic movement among progressives

in the democratic party who are now

sympathizing with palestine says adl

scott richman we're talking about

students who are not permitted to be

part of progressive causes our students

want to be part

of finding solutions for climate uh

change want to be part of

you know the college democrats or the

lgbtq

um organization but very often are being

told that they need to check their

zionism their support for israel at the

door before they're being allowed a seat

at the table and that's just that's

wrong the study was conducted in

partnership with hillel international a

jewish student group with branches in

more than 500 schools around the country

several here in new jersey and it wasn't

just the offenses that were surprising

perhaps equally as interesting is that

when questioned about what those

students did about that anti-semitic

incident 75 percent of them said they

did absolutely nothing they didn't

report it to hillel they didn't report

it to adl they didn't report it to the

administration they simply kept it to

themselves barthold says he did report

the toxic climate and while his campus

is now working to create a hillel

similar to the one on the rutgers new

brunswick campus he says the culture

still feels unsafe today

are you afraid when you're on campus

other than my core group of friends i

don't know if i'd have the support on

campus

to

not be

approached and blamed for the

israel-palestine conflict and things

like that in a statement the university

said rutgers newark strongly values and

supports our students of all backgrounds

we are indeed engaged in conversations

with student leaders about bringing a

hillel chapter to rutgers newark

scherzer says similar conversations

around the state and nation need to be

heard louder and clearer there is no

other minority group on campus

expressing these concerns for whom this

would be tolerated she says a change

can't come fast enough for nj spotlight

news i'm joanna gagis

leadership support for exploring hate is

provided by the sylvia a and simon b

poyta programming endowment to fight

anti-semitism

with additional major funding from sue

and edgar wachenheim iii

the peter g peterson and joan ganse

cooney fund and patty asquith kenner

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